


the only person who can find you again (is you)

by imbellarosa



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Erik Has Feelings, Gen, I'm told that's a popular tag, It's also basically the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 12:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15534744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa
Summary: Sometimes, he is on a beach.A look at all of the years past, and a few of them to come. After all, they have thrown more pebbles than they can count.





	the only person who can find you again (is you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BelgianReader2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelgianReader2/gifts).



> SO! I got into this fandom like two weeks ago because my friends hate me and they knew I would love it. I did.This was written quickly and has not been beta'd. I am the queen of typos. If you find any, please let me know! This one is a gift for a friend, who cursed me with this wonderful story.

_        "When you ask the stars what you want, why do you speak of love that tears you apart? Why do you crave a love that will break your heart? Your soul is never beyond repair, so stay humble and be kind and eventually a love will come along and remind you of why you are alive." _ \- from "Pillow Thoughts"

_ *** _

_        Sometimes, he is on a beach _ . He is young, and the sun is hot, and his mind is empty for the first time in weeks, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, all this pain and anger and emptiness, because Shaw is dead and he is still alone, and then he has turned the weapons back, because he might be alone, but it is better to be alone and alive than united and dead. Then he hears a scream from behind him and he is on his knees, in the sand and the blood soaks the yellow in his suit, turning it red and he is being turned red and, in another world, he might have been in love. 

       In this one, he stands, looks at the man on the beach and the boys that would follow him to the end of the earth, and leaves. 

***

        Sometimes, he is on the lawn of the White House, still a younger man, looking at the world and declaring war on them, demanding that they dare try to hurt him again. He will not be hurt again. Somewhere, he knows that he has trapped his friend under a pile of metal and rubble, but no one has been hurt. Or at least, not yet. And as he turns to take care of those who had turned their backs on him, and on his mother, he is face to face with an old friend with a blue face. A woman who betrays her ideals, and then betrays him, and then becomes a hero, all in the same day. The face of a new world for mutant kind.

        It’s a joke - a cruel joke the universe has played on him; it has taken away a mother, and Charles, and now this woman. His closest friend, standing between him and those who would as soon shoot her as look at her, and  _ she  _ is the hero. She was on the beach, too, that day, and then she was not. They left together. She went back. 

        He looks at Charles for a moment, an agreement passing through them: they were not friends, but they were not enemies. He would live, and he would do so his way. There were mutants who had heard his words. They agreed with him.

***

        And then, it’s three months later, and a woman approaches him in a bar, a human woman, and she offers to buy him a drink, tells him he looks tired. He is, and it’s been ten years since he’s been well-rested, and he’s in no mood for games, so he turns and snaps at her, her jewelry rattling to the vibrato of his voice. 

        “Are you going to hurt me now,” she asks, stepping towards him, something in her eyes almost familiar. She is not afraid. He does not hurt her; he marries her. Sometimes, she says things, and he will be right back to an old house with a big field and a satellite facing west. The point between pain and ecstasy. She believes in him, and he smiles often. She tells him he looks predatory. They have a child and name her Nina, after her mother. He thought of suggesting Raven, but figured it might garner more attention than he wanted.

       Sometimes, he thinks that Charles would be proud of him, coexisting with humans, loving them. Sometimes, he thinks that Charles might have been right. He remembers the beach. He thinks of all of the alternate endings and the  _ what if  _ narratives and the ripples and pebbles in the ponds of time. He thinks of Logan, telling him that they were old men together, working to save the world, to save their family. 

       But then it is time for dinner, and his little girl comes running in with one wild creature or another, and he is grateful for  _ this  _ family. The other one was over before it had even begun, anyways, and he had long ago stopped believing in destiny,

***

       Sometimes, he is in the woods, surrounded by the dead. His heart has shattered into more pieces than he could possibly weld back together with his fire. Somewhere in the world of dinners and factory jobs and bedtime stories, he had forgotten that he was a man who had been trained with pain, had grown with it, and welcomed it back like a dear old friend. His hands could reach down into the earth and destroy the world as it had destroyed him. 

        And then he is at the edge of forever, looking at the rubble and the destruction, and Raven, telling him that they are family, that he has Charles. The boy, who he had not thought of in so long, looks vaguely familiar. He claims to be there for his family, too. But Charles dies. At least, that’s what it seems, for a minute. His plane goes up in smoke and rubble, and by the time he tries to detain it, it has hit the ground. 

       He remembers being twenty eight, and looking at a chess board, wondering if his whole life will be anticipating Charles’ next move.  _ Oh, my friend _ , Charles had said, his eyes twinkling,  _ but wouldn’t that be fun _ . It occurs to him that this is what his life has become, except that neither of them ever really seem to win. He was an X-man once. He would have sent his daughter to Charles, when it was her time. That, he thinks, is enough to go on, for now. And so the world keeps turning. 

***

      Everyone always says it is harder to build things than it is to destroy them. The school comes back together in a matter of months. If they had told him, twenty years ago, that he would be rebuilding Charles’ school, he would have laughed at them. He stays, for a few months, and it seems like he has a family again, like it was before Cuba. Except. 

       Except Charles doesn’t have any hair and he can’t walk and Erik has a hole in his heart, and the first day that goes by without him thinking of Magda, he cries. His daughter is never far from his mind, but one day, he just...doesn’t think of her mother. The sky is blue, and Kurt keeps dropping Summers into the lake and Raven is laughing, and Charles is watching with his mouth fixed in what was meant to be a disapproving line, but it ends up looking more like a smirk. He thinks, for the first time in years, of Logan, and of how this feels like home. 

      And then the truth comes rushing back, and he decides that he can’t stay. He doesn’t. 

***

     He travels the world for a few years. The helmet he once wore was lost in one fight or another, and he doesn’t have many secrets anymore, so he lets Charles come with him, sometimes, in one way or another. He hears stories of Jean and Scott and Kurt and Peter and Hank and Raven and he is glad that they are happy. He sends them gifts, sometimes, a metal figurine from whichever country he happens to be in at the time.

   Sometimes, he finds groups of men who call themselves the Brotherhood, who are searching for Magneto to bring them into a new era. He gives them a card to the Xavier School and leaves Charles a little telepathic note of where to find them. Strangely, it seems like his school too, after so much time put into rebuilding it. 

***

       Holidays are lonely, mostly. Sometimes, he will stop into a hotel or a small town with festivities, but mostly he will spend them alone in his head. Not that his head is a lonely place anymore. They are older now, but Charles always spares a little bit of his mind for Erik.

_       Happy Chanukah, old friend _ , he whispers every December.

_       And a very Merry Christmas to you, _ Erik will reply. And then he will dream of a hearth and a home and a child’s laughter in the background, and, for the first time in years, it will not be Nina’s laugh he dreams about, but Jean’s. He dreams of Scott setting fireworks off on New Years and Peter trying to avoid them, and then thinks that maybe there are not enough pebbles or alloys in the world to change some things. 

***

      When he comes back, it is different. They have soldiers now, fighters. The old Charles never would have dreamed of letting that happen. This one encourages Raven to take them out on missions to protect those who need it. The teachers are barely children themselves, and many of them still struggle to control their power. He grumbles, makes the renovations necessary to keep the Xavier mansion up to date, and begins teaching classes. Mutant history, as it turns out. He’s sure that Charles is making fun of him.

      And somehow, he doesn’t seem to mind, because he wins at chess about forty percent of the time now, and watches Beast awkwardly flirt with Raven in between classes as though they were still teenagers, and lets Peter introduce him to his little sister, Wanda, who can control energy, which he considers to be pretty fucking cool. He thinks that, for the first time in years, he is happy. 

***

       Sometimes, he is still on a beach. But he is an old man now, with an old man beside him. He does not leave anymore. Instead, he takes out a chess board and lets his companion make this first move. It doesn’t matter who wins, anyways. They have years left to play.

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear what you think of the story! I read every single comment obsessively, believe me. Otherwise, come say hi at imbellarosa.tumblr.com!


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